How I met the husband, Part III

Part I here.
Part II here.

Around the second week of June, I flew down to Arkansas. It was only the second time I'd been on a plane, and the first time I'd done it by myself. My mom took me to the airport early Sunday morning and waited with me until I boarded. Um, if you ask my mom now, she remembers none of that. Not driving me to the airport, not the week I was gone, not the time they picked me up afterwards. Nothing. It scares me how the mind can totally erase things it wants to.

I checked into a motel, I met his roommate, and then we drove to meet his parents for the first time. I guess this is where I mention that his mother, my now mother-in-law, is a total whackadoodle. Even now, eleven years later, I still think so. She insisted that I not stay with him at his apartment. She insisted it wouldn't be prudent. My parents said that yeah, you're 18 and 21, but be prudent too, sure. But more on that later.

We had dinner at his parents house, and for the most part, it was uncomfy. His mom talked a lot about sin and God, woo-boy, the sin, and I was young enough to ignore most of it. I didn't get warm, snuggly vibes from her, but she didn't out-and-out call me names, so it was okay, I guess. In the car, I told the husband that I wasn't so sure his mom dug me all that much. He grabbed my hand and said, "Yeah, it's okay though, I still love you." (Yes, that was the FIRST time. But you know what? The husband doesn't remember it!)

Okay, so yeah, I suppose it looks a little bad to have a sleepover with a boy in his apartment when you've just met, blah, blah. So I did get a motel room. His mom thought it'd only be right. My mom sort of agreed. But no one said anything about him spending the night with me! Specifics, people! They change everything! So sometime that night, around 3 in the morning, while we were honestly sleeping, the phone rings in my motel room. I answer in my sleepy voice, and it's his MOTHER. (Just to clarify again, I'm 18 at this point and he's 21. That's 18 plus 3.) I really can't remember exactly what she said, but it was something along the lines of "Don't be a whore. You're being a whore! SIN SIN SIN! Premarital sex WHORE!" Then she asked that I pass the phone to the husband where I imagine he heard something like, "She's a whore. You may be a whore PREMARITAL sex WHORE sin sin." You know, something like that.

She actually wound up calling my mom the next day and asking her if there was anything they could dooooo to stop all this sinny whoring around. Dude, we were of legal age. Legally, there wasn't anything stopping us from getting our whore on. That didn't stop the mother-in-law from trying to break us me down mentally though. She tried several times just that week to talk us out of...I don't know what she wanted us to stop doing. I mean, from what I gather, she was just really worried about us boning without a marriage license.

Despite his mother, I still liked him. A lot. So much so that I sobbed all the way home on the plane. And at my layover in St. Louis, I called him. Because I had forgotten to tell him at the airport that I loved him.